In videoconferencing, people at two or more geographic locations can conduct a meeting with simultaneous, two-way video and audio transmissions. The videoconference can be as uncomplicated as point-to-point communication between two people in private offices or it can be more elaborate multipoint communication using a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) bridge that interconnects calls from several geographic locations, with groups of participants in large rooms especially equipped for videoconferencing. Such conferences can, in addition, be used to share documents, computer-displayed information, and whiteboards.
Organizations such as corporations and governments at the city, state, and national levels use elaborate videoconferencing networks to conduct their meetings and operations, both within the organization and with other organizations. The networks typically interconnect end points, which can range from a limited bandwidth desktop PC connected through the Internet, to elaborate videoconference rooms designed for high quality-of-service communication and equipped with high definition displays requiring a high bandwidth. The networks, themselves can be leased or owned, and can range from packet switched Internet links to dedicated, circuit switched trunks that may include international links through undersea fiber optical cables or leased transponders of a communications satellite.
Because members of an organization may wish to conduct multiple videoconferencing sessions simultaneously, centralized scheduling servers must be used to allocate the finite available bandwidth of the network's segments and to allocate the conferencing end points among the requesting videoconferencing sessions.
However, the preferential allocation of network resources has not been addressed or solved for requesting ad hoc videoconferencing sessions under conditions of emergency, stress, or disaster. For example, an international petroleum corporation conducts exploration, drilling, extraction, refining, and marketing operations for petroleum. The corporation uses dedicated, circuit switched trunks that include leased satellite transponders to conduct videoconferencing meetings between their various land-based operations, their fleet of oil tankers at sea, their mid-ocean oil drilling platforms, and their land-based operations on other continents. In the event of a storm or fire on an oil drilling platform, urgent, ad hoc conferences need to be conducted regarding the preservation of lives and property. Some way needs to be available to preferentially allocate network resources for such urgent, ad hoc conferences without completely disrupting existing scheduled conferences. As another example, the corporation provides WiFi-connected, laptop computers used by construction contractors at their gulf-coast oil refinery, which is being repaired after having suffered damage in a hurricane. Conferences are conducted by the laptops over packet switched Internet links to the corporation's videoconferencing gateway. The need to bring the refinery back on line quickly is a high priority for the corporation. Some way needs to be available to preferentially allocate, on a temporary basis, network resources for such a high priority project, but without preempting urgent, ad hoc conferences such as would be required for responding to the disaster on the oil drilling platform.